


Missing Child Case

by StoryCloud



Series: Neutral Cases [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: After Ending, First Person, Gen, Genocide, Human Souls, Neutral Ending, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Undertale Neutral Route - Near Genocide Ending, Sensitive subjects, Up for interpretation, brief mentions of kidnapping and cults, humans souls, mentions of tough subjects, nothing graphic, police department account, references to violence, several different perspectives, six humans, they didn't actually happen, though those are speculation, various endings explored at intervals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8612602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoryCloud/pseuds/StoryCloud
Summary: Against all odds, the police find the four-year old that went missing around the summit of Mount Ebbot. A story from a child's perspective has many interpretations.





	1. Somebody

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little plot bunny and headcanon idea I had - that Frisk may have been a very small child with barely any understanding of what was going on. Originally I was going to write more, but we'll see.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Police Officer's account.

You couldn’t believe it.

They were alive.

You couldn’t believe it.

Cases like this one pop up all the time in the police department, especially in rural forestry areas like this; where all it would take is a split second of disregard for a small child to wander off into the woods. And, once they were more than a meter in, it would be almost impossible to find them.  So many directions, so many variations, no set paths. It was a nightmare.

By this point you’d grown desensitized to it. The first time you ever received a missing child’s case, you swore every night in the following week of searching that you were going to quit the force. You couldn’t handle the hysterical parents, the growing desperation in everyone’s hearts, the faltering determination. The second time you nearly broke, when they found the body in the river. One slip and the kid were gone. The first one? No trace was ever found.

So by rule of thumb, after the first two days, you expected similar outcomes to cases like this. Now that it was at least a week later you didn’t hold out much hope. The parents were distraught, and their despair seeped into the very soil. Brown haired mother, stone-faced father who did his best not to break, not yet.

You were searching the forest at the mountain base for the umpteenth time, and then –

A branch broke, and out from the thickets and bushes came a little form, all pudgy and stumbling, and you felt as if every bad thing that had every occurred in your career was obsolete.

They were alive. The four-year old that vanished on Mount Ebbot was alive.

They were completely frozen with shock. When you tried to pick them up, they swiped at you with a knife. It was old and rusty, and you recognised it as a ranger’s knife. Someone must have dropped it and the kid had picked it up. Their hands shook violently and they didn’t so much as prod you, so you managed to scoop them up and take them back to the rest of the search party before they could register what had happened.

They dropped the knife when you stepped into the glow of the police lights, and your colleagues came sprinting, medical personnel at their heels. After that, people with cameras, more police from different departments. The child, limp now, was bundled up in a blanket and sped off to hospital.

You filled in your report feeling lighter than air, because for the first time, the outcome had been happy. Hopeful, even. Everyone was sure that this little kid was dead, but here they were.

Apparently they had some cuts, some bruises, a bad gash about the lip, but those would heal. They were covered in a strange power – which the police were trying to identify. To make sure there wasn’t another cause for the disappearance – that someone hadn’t taken them.

The parents barrelled into the hospital ward and you heard their cries, father and mother both, as they cradled their baby.

You heard that the kid only started talking about what happened a week later, after gentle coaxing and careful healing. They said they met people. One acted all nice and said they’d help fix their sore leg. Offered pie. (You and the whole department thought the same thing simultaneously – kidnapper, promising candy and treats, led them away?) But then they didn’t want the child to leave, so they had to fight. They got away when the person ‘fell’.

The happiness was subdued as the whole, if broken, story came out. They child said that the ‘monsters’ tried to get them, that a scary woman said that they were bad and ‘had to die’. They kept wanting to try and ‘capture them’. They didn’t speak a word, they said; mommy says not to talk to strangers.

They fought the monsters, they said, and got away.

You didn’t want to think of the implications, but you hoped whatever creeps out there that had attacked this little kid were rotting in hell.

You and some of your colleagues checked out the forest, looking for a sign of these people. You found a backpack belonging to the kid around the same area you found them and it was brought back for evidence.

You found a worn tutu. Ballet shoes. An apron, a rusty pan. A notebook and glasses (The notebook was currently being examined.) There was a child’s handwriting inside.

You felt dread sink into your soul.

It turned out the first kid, the first case you ever got, had owned one of the above, and the four-year old was brought back in, their parents holding them tight as they said they ‘found’ the things in the place where the monsters were. And that the scary woman said they’d taken the ‘souls’ of the ‘other six’.

The child couldn’t even count to six, and it was clear they were just repeating what they’d heard time and time again.

A new investigation was opened; you trekked further into the forest with a fresh resolve. Someone, you said, someone was going to pay for this. Six kids, all identified by the items. It could have been seven dead, but you were determined to bring vengeance upon whoever was responsible.

You personally told the kid, who was crying about ‘hurting the monsters’ that they didn’t have to feel sorry for these people.

...

The notebook, written by a child well-known by the older teachers in the town, deciphered more. You were beginning to wish there wasn’t more. They seemed to believe that the people who took them captive, that attacking them, thought that their ‘soul’ could set them free. What was it, a cult?

And they spoke of the ‘woman’ - with the same description the four-year-old gave, with the gentle words and promises of help – who tried to stop them from leaving. The glasses kid seemed to think the woman was misguided but nice, and ‘was just lonely’. You felt sick thinking about it.

Then there was some guy who cracked jokes but kept following them around. Stories about monsters and legends, an old one you’d heard yourself as a kid, nothing important. How the kid wrote in their notebook that they’d ‘make things right’.

The notes ended there. But now you had suspects – some guy in a blue hood, short and pale, and a rather big woman, with old fashioned clothing. Perhaps an older woman? Who knew. It wasn’t much to go on, but you have an _idea_ now.

The little four-year old kept insisting that they were ‘monsters’. They probably saw it that way. The parents were agitated, they wanted their kid to forget it all, pretend it was a nightmare and get on with their lives, but you had no choice. The detective department interviewed them on the suspects.

‘Riel’ was the woman. That’s all the kid could utter. Something like that, and other names they didn’t quite remember. The blue hood man came up again, the child said they looked like a skeleton. Short. Funny. Followed them in the woods. Sam? Samson? Something with a good amount of ‘s’ in it, you were sure. Narrowed it down.

You and the rest of the departments felt invigorated. You were piecing together a picture, zoning in on these two people. If the child from before saw a man in a blue hood who told jokes, and the same guy wore the same hood years later...who’s to say he wasn’t wearing one now?

More searching in the woods were in order.

It was a month into the investigation that your colleagues found the mobile phone. An old model, upgraded with odd tech. They brought it in, hands near shaking with excitement, hoping they’d found a breakthrough.

You were in the room when they charged it up and turned it on, good as new.

A low, mumbling voice – a man’s – came into being.

“is anyone there?

it’s been a while, huh?”

...

_In one timeline, it went like this._

The guy gave a few dark, but ambiguous lines. Then he said –

“...that was a joke.”

Jokes.

Blue hood guy. You felt your soul burn with hatred and gratification. You’d found him.

 “this is what happens when people like me take it easy.”

Was that a threat? Everyone in the room looked uneasy. This voice was so...strange, something was off about it.

Then, it changed. It was empty, and low, and filled with nothing but loathing.

“See ya.”

...

You had a horrible feeling. The parents were alerted that the person responsible for taking their child may still be at large. That was the last straw for them.

They packed up and left the town, to move to a city, states over, the very next day. Witness protection was set up, just in case. All kinds of data protection and ways to hide them, so they could leave behind this nightmare once and for all. The child was so small. They’d forget it all eventually, they already were. They barely remembered the ‘blue hood man’.

But you remembered.

....

_In another timeline..._

The guy started talking about...some pretty wacked things. ‘The Queen’. A rebellion. Humans and monsters. How they became roomies. And how the person they were calling had killed their brother. Was it a prank call? Some sick joke? You had no idea.

You were left pulling at strings. The guy signed off by saying the kid wasn’t welcome back. It made no sense whatsoever.

When questioned, the child didn’t really recall what had happened. They confirmed that the phone was theirs; that the lady gave it to them. That the blue hood man had a brother that tried to ‘catch them’.

Self defence, their parents shrieked when confronted with the department’s hunch. If he attacked our kid, then good! Let him rot in hell!

But knowing the guy’s brother was out there put them on edge. They were going to pack up and move soon.

You almost wished you could do the same.

...


	2. Items

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Head of the Lab Department has no idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...I wasn't going to continue this, and might not. So I guess I'm saying 'maybe'. But not definite. I've got decorating to do.  
> Merry Christmas!

The things the police department sent to be analysed baffled you. Not in the sense that the objects themselves were strange; in fact you’d had to dust many things like notebooks and shoes for prints. The bag you and your colleagues received from the pale yet determined police officer who found the missing four-year old was a standard child’s bag, not the most expensive, but colourful and sturdy enough for any small kid getting ready for school life.

No, it was the substances their clothes and bag had been caked in. The computers signalled some kind of...organic matter, but of what it couldn’t decipher. The only solution was that whatever it was had been tarnished and tainted too much for the computers to get a straight answer. Still, something about it unnerved you.

The rest was a little easier to figure out. The notebook’s fingerprints and writing signalled it belonged to a child that went missing almost fifteen years ago – you didn’t remember, but they’d gone to your school. Far younger, in a much lower year, but the same school nonetheless. The teachers who had been approached, and the parents, were in pieces. They had their answer now – their child, with their big glasses and interest in the world, was most definitely dead.

There were droplets of dried blood on the back of the notebook.

The tutu and shoe set belonged to a little girl who went missing back in the 1970s. Her parents and grandparents were no longer alive. Her cousins and siblings had moved away, but all returned to mourn once the news came out. The tutu especially was covered in that...stuff. You shuddered to think of _why._ Apart from that dust there was nothing else on the fabric, though it was worn. She was mentioned by the notebook child, and apparently she died by the hands of a fearsome ‘woman’. Near the ‘water’.

The rangers were currently searching the main water reservoirs around the mountain, now that you remembered.

The owner of the grimy frying pan and apron was much harder to find. The burns came back as tomato and spaghetti residue; an inexperienced person had been cooking. Turns out, a youth from a care home went missing around the age of fourteen. They’d ran away and apparently the police took a wrong lead and assumed he’d skipped down on a bus.

When in reality he’d gone into the woods and never came out again.

The notebook mentioned something about ‘brothers’ and ‘spaghetti’. When you told the officer this, he went white as a sheet.

There was a red ribbon that had to be identified by an old couple, who lost their child many years ago, even _before_ the tutu girl. They came in, and you watched from around the hall in passing as they walked. In their eighties, old and frail, their faces crumbling. The father – who never became a grandfather – had to be led in by his wife.

You heard him sobbing when they recognised the ribbon, made especially for their only girl, their six-year old darling, who they lost during a picnic. They never forgave themselves.

You heard the father say ‘If only I’d been watching closer’. If only we’d _known_ what was out there.

...

You took your coffee without milk that day, and sat with your colleagues as the tests on the substance continued. Someone from the inner city was going to come and take a sample to be submitted to their better technology in the states.

If only the ribbon had been the end of it.

A bandanna and a pink boxing glove sent the detectives to the sports club. You found dog hair of all things on that, and it turns out the child hadn’t owned a dog. The police officers grasped at that; perhaps the perpetrators owned a dog. Narrows it down?

The coach didn’t need to identify the gloves – they had a name tag; club owned. The boy disappeared after practice one evening, citing a sore head. It was twenty years ago. He’d never mentioned going to the woods, and like the frying pan teen, never gave any indication of where he was going besides home. He didn’t even live close by!

The boy’s siblings couldn’t understand it. He would never just...run off like that.

This investigation seemed to grow bigger and bigger, and now everyone in this little town was privy to it. You and everyone else seemed to be equally involved, everyone was talking about it, some in gossip, others – perhaps friends or acquaintances, of acquaintances and co-workers who remembered their distraught parents or siblings – thought about it when they tried to sleep.

Because, it seemed something terrifying was lurking in the woods, drawing children in like some urban legend spectre.

The boy’s friends had to be tracked down, you heard. They remembered nothing, though they tried. Then it turned out it was a bully who gave the final a piece of information...he’d dared the other boy. Said he was too chicken to brave the mountain.

You wondered if he felt the weight of his sin even now.

...

An empty gun – a real gun – and a cowboy hat sent the department into stagnation, for it could not be tracked further than their own doors.

The gun came from the now redundant sheriff’s department, replaced by this very station in the same building.

The hat was a toy.

The detectives scoured the notebook for some mention of this one, toy stores were rifled through – no, not by the police, the public. Now that the town was so invested in this investigation, volunteers were pouring in. Everyone was determined to find the truth – this is own town, these were our kids they said.

For others, it was just getting in on the excitement. But oh well... at least they were ‘helping’, right?

Former school mates, those who knew the kids and those who hadn’t even heard of them, helped owners search toy stores, looked through their own belongings. The police urged anyone who knew anything to come forward.

Then, finally, the little four-year old saw the news coverage - for the first time, as their parents would turn off the TV whenever a whiff of the ordeal came into earshot. They hoped their child would forget. But the four-year old had wandered downstairs and, by pure chance, saw the news reporter reciting the familiar information – a real gun and a toy cowboy hat, if you know _anything please contact us_ –

They pointed and warbled about the items and that they got if from the two ladies.

...

The child was brought back. The parents, as far as the authorities were concerned, had no choice. Pressured, but very begrudging and terrified out of their wits, the mother and father returned. They didn’t even allow the child to bit sat down alone, and demanded they be with them every second they were in this ‘cursed town’.

The old couple, whose child had sported the ribbon, as well as the other family members were there. The department made the mistake of putting them somewhere they could see the child.

The one who escaped.

 The father of the boxing-glove child demanded they get to ask the four-year old more questions themselves, which resulted in a full-out barmy in the halls. The parents of the aforementioned escapee hurried into the witness room before things go too heated.

The four-year old started crying, quietly, but after a while they calmed down. You were asked to be there as a representative of the ‘boys at the lab’. You got to see the legendary child yourself, small and pudgy, and after a cup of tea and cookie, far more relaxed than their parents. They still hadn’t recovered from the terror of losing them.

The parents looked tired but high-strung, and even more so as the detective began asking the four-year old about the child with the gun.

The four-year old said they saw no child, just the ladies. They ‘bought’ the ‘toy gun’ and ‘cowboy hat, yee-haw!’ from the ladies.

When asked what the ladies looked like, they said ‘kitties’.

Did their clothes have kitties on them?

No, they were a kitty and lizard.

What age were they?

Dunno.

Were they related, do you know?

BFFs, the child said, surprising everyone with the tone they used. Mimicked, more like.

The child started repeating lines they’d obviously heard but didn't really understand, in a chipper, exaggerated voice. Using ‘like’ and ‘omg’.

The investigators decided that the two ‘women’ might be in their twenties, or even teens, by that dialogue.

Then the child, while running their finger in circles on the wooden table, said that the ‘kitty’ and lizard lady’ found the gun and hat in the ‘garbage’.

There was nothing else after that.

...

It was all so bazaar, you said to one of the policemen on the case during another coffee break. Children wandering into the woods and meeting these...people. And leaving no trace besides their own items.

The policeman, who worked with the one who found the child, said that they had two suspects in mind. But all of it was beginning to creep him out, how all of these different kids from different generations all found their end in the same place...with the same people.

You didn’t tell them about the dust. You felt it would make it worst.

...

The results from the city came back.

Apparently, the same substance has been found in certain fossils dating back centuries ago. It has indeed been classified as organ residue.

They were going to get some archaeologists in. This seemed mad, didn't it? All these experts getting involved in a small rural community's affairs. But this substance had been studied before with no leads. Now everything seemed...bigger. Looming.

You felt afraid, a crawling in your skin, and you didn’t know why.


	3. Ring-Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old mobile phones are hard to track, even for a Detective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did NOT expect this kind of praise for this. Thank you, guys.  
> Note, that the 'endings' change here and there, but the 'main events' - the police officer finding the child, the examiners discovering the dust, the detective being brought in, will remain the same not matter the nature of the neutral route.

You deceived your new assignment the day after the kid was found.

You were given access to the phone and the recordings. You spoke to the Officer who found the child. You knew the drill, you had the skill. Summarise. Look for motives, cross-reference, find leads – however faint they seem. However far-fetched.

The recordings were broken in some areas, you didn’t get any names. The voice you – and the entire department, in fact _everyone_ who worked on this case – had become familiar with played for the fourth time as you held your pen at the ready.

“...but it’s not easy, you know? When all your hopes have pretty much been thrown away...”

Who did this guy think he was leaving a message to? Certainly not a kid.

“ I’m going to be a great Mom!”

That loud, obnoxious voice was the one you hated the most. What did it (He?) mean _, a great Mom?_

You huffed a little, frustrated. There couldn’t just be a bunch of _idiots_ out there.

Well. You’d heard of weirdoes nicking children because they hadn’t any of their own, or through mental-anguish induced schemes, usually after miscarriages or whatnot. But six children were now dead and you were sure that if the seventh hadn’t escaped, they would be, too.

You had a few theories in mind. Some group used the forest as some kind of...gathering place. It was easy to pass of crimes in a forest as accidents. A bashed in skull? A nasty fall. Drowning? Could’ve slipped.

The voices spoke about being ‘trapped in here’. You planned to find out about anyone who owned cabins, forest cottages, the like. Heck, maybe you’d check out a cave or two – but you were no ranger.

...

One of the actual park rangers, who worked near the hiking equipment lodge (a very, very slow business, as this wasn’t exactly the best tourist destination) said they found some things while out in the forest and tossed them into the Lost and Found. He handed in the whole box once this fiasco came out – he didn’t usually find much, but lately he’d picked up some ‘items’.

You were ‘clued in’ to the items once the lab boys got their gloved paws off them.

A bunch of keys. None, you found (after a thorough search) fit so much as a kitchen cupboard in the town. Old-fashioned keys, not the modern make. One of them was so bent it couldn’t hope to open anything.

No fingerprints beside the four-year old’s were found, but it did confirm they’d been playing around with them. Still, such old keys. Who would have so many?

You asked older establishments, but none had any safe or lock that would fit them.

This was going nowhere. Theories were springing up about cults and sinister groups, but really you thought the department was overreacting. You only heard two distinct voices on that phone and they seemed to be rambling about out-of-context nonsense.

...

_In another timeline..._

Heh. In another timeline, you wouldn’t have been this freaked out.

Human beings have a weirdness censor, see. And you’d grown accustomed to the creepy. Being a detective, you had to get into the minds of the scummiest people there were to guess what they’d be planning.

But when you were allowed to review the evidence and recorded messages to begin your investigation, you felt some buried seventh instinct bubble in your stomach.

“...So...you’re the one who killed all my friends.”

There was something...oddly plain, if a horror-struck, empty plain, about the delivery.

That tone continued.

“I hate you.”

It sounded like a woman, with a strange way of speaking you couldn’t quite place. You stared at the recorder as it played, the pen you’d been twiddling going still.

“When I first saw you hurting people...”

It made no sense. It was a kid who had the phone, right?

You listened, and then –

“At least Sans is still here.”

You fill a chill crawl up your back.

Do you remember? Your colleague said the kid mentioned the blue hood man’s name – Sam or Samson, or...

“Just daydreaming here...”

Then it came. The delivery was still plain, but there was a strained, nervous laughter to it.

“I really should have killed you while I had the chance.”

For the first time since your rookie years, you felt point-blank afraid.

...

With all this, the investigators had to ask. Did the child attack anyone?

There was no blood, no _sign_ of an attack on anyone at all. The knife they had was heavy; the kid could barely hold it. Old and rusty. The parents were furious. Worried they’d cart the kid off to some mental asylum. Start all that counselling and therapy and pill treatments. Personally, you routed self defence.

You asked the kid, face to face. You were interested to meet them.

First, you cleared up your own uneasy question – that the phone was indeed theirs, the messages were for _them_. The child nodded. When you asked if they recognised the voices, they nodded.

The ‘glasses lady’ was watching them on a camera, apparently. You tried to ignore their parents flinching. Someone following a kid around with a camera in the forest. There’s no way on earth you could say that line without cringing.

You asked if the kid had...’hit’ any of the ‘monsters.’

I hit them with a stick first, they said, and they fell down.

Did you hit them very hard?

No, they said.

They found the knife later, apparently. Some other woman had been chasing them with a big pointy stick, according to them, and said she was going to kill them. So they hit her.

Silence engulfed the room as they detailed it. A tall, pale man said they were going to ‘capture them’. They couldn’t move much. It was cold. The white sticks were hitting them, so they hit the man once and he fell down.

Then another guy with pretty hair kicked them, so they kicked _him_. But he was still talking when they ran away.

Sans is angry at me, they said, as if just remembering.

 ‘Fees’ is angry at me, they said.

...

Okay, so you were at a loss. No leads. It seemed no one in town was eligible to be a suspect, and no one could trace the caller ID. The add-on technology to it was ‘custom’ apparently. What the heck?

You paced around your office more than once, trying to figure it all out. Kids say weird things. Maybe they made it all up!

But then how does one explain those recorded messages, all the stuff left by the other kids? What was going _on?_

You had one idea, one the parents would hate; the department would be sceptical of. _What if, and just hear me out, what if we asked the kid to show us where they went?_ They were probably all turned around and lost but...what if there’s some place you’ve all missed?

...

You tracked down the phone’s origins through make and description. It was one of those old-school, ancient designs. 1989 – bulky, with an antenna to boot! You’d be chuckling if not for the weirdness of it all.

No one came to claim it, and with the add-on tech you weren’t allowed to take it with you to be examined by any old shop owners.

But you had the original design – that is, a match of the tech before someone stuck a bunch of extra doo-hickeys on it, and found its original electronic store. Now selling the odd touch-screen iPod and a couple of laptops, it was a rural place after all. The owner mentioned his friend’s granddad used to own this place, but he wouldn’t know where the owner of that phone was. This town wasn’t vast but tracking down an item from over two decades ago was going to be a nightmare.

You looked over the phone itself, images of it that is. Battered in some places, given the age. There had been evidence of ddeterioration due to dampness before it was ‘fixed’.

The kid mentioned garbage.

Now, where did people usually throw out old trash, besides actual trashcans? The forest, yes, but _where else?_

You recalled the kid mentioning the lake.

It was time to put on your oh-so unused hiking boots.

...

Diving wasn't allowed in this lake, nor any kind of swimming. The rivers around here weren’t the cleanest, even if the forest itself was fine and dandy. Most of the garbage came from the city; tossed into one of the aforementioned rivers and trudging its way along year by year.

The outskirts of the lake had already been searched, as any other place that may have ‘waterfalls’ – as the kid had mentioned.

You found an old bike half-buried in the embankment, some old golf clubs. You did some research on your phone absently-mindedly as you plodded along, the chill of late autumn nibbling at your nose.

The lake was deep apparently, with several cave-like crevices below. It was too dark to see some areas. The rivers leading into the lake (making it less of a lake and more of a large, bulbous knot in a string of water) ran into Mount Ebbot itself, but there was no crevice or cave large enough to fit a human child.

It was all confusing and you found yourself literally walking in circles. The kid was nowhere near the rivers when they were found. You felt as though you were wasting your time.

...

The thing is, the phone was made over two decades ago.

The parents of the first victim – the ribbon girl – were in their eighties. Their child vanished back in the _1950s._

Going by the contents of the notebook, you were sure that the same blue-hood bloke and ‘nice lady’ who met the four-year old had ran into the kid with the frying pan and the notebook doodler themselves. No question. But they couldn’t have had a hand in the other kids’ murders, could they? Unless they’d been children, too. And if so they’d be getting on in years now as well.

The first kid went missing sixty years ago, for Pete’s sake. The times didn’t add up...but then how had the last kid come by all their things? In such, dare you say it, good condition?

Cults, whispered the public. Handed down generation to generation.

You snorted at that idea.

But if it wasn’t some crazy thing like that, then _what_ was the connection?

...

You examined the cell phone yourself eventually, weeks into the investigation. The hat and gun fiasco had sent the department on edge. Turns out, it wasn’t one case you were investigating now – but several. One giant mystery that lay in the depths of the mountain woods and you still had no answer.

Well, you thought was you ran your hands through your hair, your office lamp the only light source to your frustration. You had _clues._ They just didn’t go anywhere.

The cell phone lay in front of you. Gloves on, you’d turned and twiddled with it, looking for some sign.

And it started ringing.

You flew up off your chair. You alerted someone to get a recorder, a tracker. The surrounding officers, your colleagues, inwardly went insane with tension –

But then the ringing cut off, leaving you to stare at the device in semi-horror, and semi relief.


	4. Name The Fallen...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes managing is all you can do. The Councillor's Account.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT:  
> In case anyone is confused, these all take place after a NEUTRAL ROUTE. Each 'section' deals with different outcomes, such as the Alphys Ending, the Empress Undyne, or the Papyrus Lives. I hope that in each section you're able to guess which one is which, but one thing stays in common - it was a Neutral Route. In some where you cannot guess, its meant to be up for interpretation.  
> That includes the Near-Genocide, too.  
> ALSO - Thus far there have been FOUR different people's perspectives we've seen - The Police Officer who found Frisk, The Lab Person, The Detective, and The Councillor. (This chapter)  
> Hope this clears everything up!  
> Doodle-do, Thanks for all the kind words, people. Never expected this praise.

You were a counsellor.

It was your job to be on hand for the family members.

You had been there for witnesses, nervous victims, and the like. Technically you hailed from a Support system, but you’d been brought in for this from the city. There weren’t such... specific departments in a small rural town.

Old wounds were the worst kind. Perhaps some of the families had been able to move on, by now it had all come back to bite them. Some had never recovered, like the old couple, the father especially, who had never found peace for taking his eye off his six-year old for a second. There was anger, frustration, fury.

Then there was the terror of the newcomers, the parents of the four-year old who needed your help. The mother admitted whilst waiting for another interview from the detectives that she couldn’t sleep a wink. That she felt like some ominous presence lingered around their home, and she felt powerless to protect her child.

The father was the same. He sat on the plastic chair in the colourless hall, their four-year on their knee, playing absently and obliviously with a red ball, and said he felt like a failure. How could they have lost them like this? His arms, wrapped around his child’s torso as they played, gripped ever the tighter; as if he was afraid some unseen force would appear to snatch them away.

And, who on earth was out there?

It was a _child_ counsellor’s job to comfort the kid. You dealt with adults.

...

The mother told you that their child often spoke of their experience, during dinner, before bedtime. They said they felt tense whenever they did. But such happenings were becoming...les frequent. They took that as a good sign.

The four-year old, one night, said that they ‘lost the locket’.

You wondered what that meant, but advised the mother to take each day slowly. That the child was safe, everyone was safe, no one would get within a mile of their house with all the police around.

Eventually the father approached you, while the mother and the child were in yet another interview with a detective, and told you of their plans to move away. Go to their relatives’ states over. Get out of here.

You understood, and perhaps a fresh start was for the better. Some of the other families, though understandable in their grief, would forever be jealous of their child’s survival. And the four-year old would never be allowed to forget this event if the entire town knew their name.

Preparations began, and already it seemed the parents were perking up at the idea of escaping this nightmare forever.

...

The parents relayed their fears of the child’s dreams to you in whispers.

Skeletons in blue hoods. (The blue hood man seemed to haunt this department like a shadow.)

Big ladies who turned bad when you tried to get away. (No amount of PSA’s seemed to put children off following strangers who promise yummy sweets.)

And, worst of all, another child who ‘looked like them’. A child the four-year old assured their parents was ‘already dead’.

The flowers.

You tried to make sense of it. You hoped the talk of all the other missing children wasn’t beginning to weigh on the four-year old. You hoped they weren’t beginning to _understand_ what had _really_ happened.

It was all these call-backs. No, not as in acting. The police and detectives kept dragging the child back for questioning, and while you understood the necessity, it was obviously making it hard for them to forget. In the past week the four-year old hadn’t relayed a single piece of new information and it was going to start affecting them.

...

The old couple saw the child once in passing. The old lady, in her eighties, was holding the ribbon and staring at the floor. The four-year old let go of their mother’s hand and wandered over; ignoring the calls to return as they pointed and said the ribbon was pretty.

You had worried about the reaction.

But then the old woman smiled, and said yes, they had it made specially.

...

Apparently, the old couple saw the child again later on, and chattered to them about the ribbon and the ‘toy knife’. About how these items protected them. You had no idea why the child would think such a thing, but instead of giving the old couple grief, it seemed to bring some sort of comfort to them.

They went to a cafe with the child’s parents as the kid doodled, and they assured them they felt no anger, no resentment.

Into the weeks following the investigation, you heard, the old couple saw the child all the time. Gave them scones. They had no grandchildren, and the four-year old barely saw their only living grandparent. The parents, though apprehensive, were glad for the support.

Something happy had come from this, it seemed. The old couple gained a grandchild, and one day the old man, who barely spoke nowadays, said that he was glad the ribbon had protected them. That’s my girl, watching over them.

They were family now, as far as they were all concerned.

...

Things had been looking up when it happened.

The searches were going well, even if they didn’t turn out much evidence. The crevices near the ‘dumping’ sites were being examined. The child and their parents were perking up. All evidence of injury had faded from the kid’s face, the gash at their lip gone, and no more scraped knee. It started snowing. Though this made continued searching in the forest hard, it seemed to blanket the uneasy town in a quiet lull.

You were having tea with several others, waiting for the parents of the four-year old to return. This would be their last interview before they moved. Or it would have been.

Then, three officers came hurtling down the hall, disturbing every quiet goings-on, raising every head. Attention from all sides seemed to rally in on the squeak of their muddy boots. You poked your head out of the break room and felt something lower in your chest.

The team that had been sent to check out the mountain had returned. Their faces were ashen.

The police officer who found the child was missing.

...

You called the child’s parents.

Take your child, and get out of the town.

Something’s wrong.

...

There was no trace of them.

Like the children, they’d simply...vanished. And it felt as though every second that went by after the incident was sand slipping through the department’s fingers. That a countdown had begun.

Was it coincidence? The townspeople, always up for gossip, whispered that this was impossible. The police officer who rescued the would-be victim?

They’d been determined to find the perpetrator, and it seemed they had.

Let’s face it, you heard the fondly christened ‘lab boys’ murmur one day. Whoever was out there has probably got them.

The head of the lab department said nothing, taking a very, very shaky sip of coffee. You caught their eye and wished you hadn’t.

Haunted. You knew that look, and you knew they were haunted. That they knew something you didn’t, even if it was the single fact that something was very, very wrong.

If the kid got away, perhaps their rescuer would.

But. Still.

The disappearance of the police officer who, against all odds, found the four-year old that went missing at the summit of Mount Ebbot, fills you with doubt.

 


	5. Emote

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk's Parents. What do you do when all you have to grasp at is straws?

Determination for most is a wall. In the mind and soul. It could be a bridge or a door – some had a sturdy, well built formation to keep their worries and doubts at bay, opened by will, climbed by want or crossed by sheer need. You _need_ to keep working in this back-breaking job because your family _needs_ you to. You _want_ to keep chasing your dreams, because it’s part of who you are. You _willed_ yourself to get through the pain, because if you didn’t, you would never get anywhere.

For _you_ however, determination was a tightrope walk. The moment you looked down...

The moment you considered that maybe, just maybe, your child was gone forever, somehow in your mind that _would_ make it true. You felt that if you came to that despair you would shatter.

If you so much tasted doubt...

People frowned at you for it, as your wife wept and threw fits of rage, all of it anguish. You knew she meant none of the harsh words she said to you, just as _you_ knew none of the cold things you said in return meant anything.

The majority of your friends had no children (though all of you were past your twenties, you were considered ‘old’ to be the parent of such a young child) and they didn’t know how to comfort you. Pats on the back, gestures of hope. Their faces were the same; brows up, eyes lost, their mouths unable to choose between helpful smiles or pained grimaces.

They couldn’t imagine, they said.

That was true. They couldn’t.

The worst part was not when your four-year old first vanished. It was when it dawned on you that they weren’t simply a few feet away, that they hadn’t wandered off. More and more, it had built up inside your chest, until you were gripping your skull and a voice was yelling at you, don’t panic, don’t panic, you need to _think._ You had to be resilient, you had to find them.

It took you a while to realise that the voice was your own, bellowing inside your skull.

You remembered the first sleepless night. In the woods with the police, the pitch black, calling and calling, your wife’s voice and your own: hoarse but one. A single being with two tones, yours deep and thick, your wife’s ringing.

There had been no answer and you wanted to fall to the earthy floor among the sharp twigs and rocks, and weep.

But you couldn’t, you told yourself, and that cold, throat-numbing feeling etched onto your face, making your usually subtle expressions grow stoic.

You felt emotions were precious and you never exaggerated them.

Most thought you cold hearted, for not crying like your relatives did. But you had no time to cry. You had to think, like the detectives advised. Children going missing are more likely to be taken by someone they knew – or perhaps, you thought, someone who _resembled_ you?

You didn’t walk into the forest each night, you marched, and you searched. Your wife did too. You’d split up, walkie-talkies between you, despite the police advising that you get some rest.

Maybe your kid was scared of the police, you reasoned. _Maybe they’d only come if they heard us._

Eventually, your friends had to drag you back to the station and make you eat. You hadn’t eaten in three days, hadn’t slept, and you crashed against your will on the seats in the waiting room.

You woke up feeling worse than death.

Death.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, it hasn’t happened, they’re just lost, they’re probably fine, don’t think about it.

The police didn’t try to lie to you. They couldn’t make any promises.

...

You hated this town.

You hated that mountain.

Your husband grew up here, but the shadow of that peak always put you on edge. The forest around it didn’t help, sprawling and without many clear paths. It was too quiet, too isolated here. But you’d never been _terrified_ , never been unnerved so much that you wanted to vomit.

Well, you thought bitterly, now you realised you should’ve gone with your guts.

It’ll never happen to me, that’s what all mothers say. You’d been lenient, you’d let your guard down, and now your child was gone and it seemed like your husband was going to shut down at any moment.

Your heart throbbed like a separate entity throughout it all.

They could be out there. Cold, lonely, crying for you and you were stuck in this station talking to doe-eyed investigators and you had to resist the urge to punch them all in the jaw.

You planned which way you and your husband went into the woods. Every moment, every second, was bent on searching for your child.

You felt like you could pry trees apart. There was a horrible itch in your soul that made you wanted to attack, but _be attacked_ at the same time. You hated this mountain but you also hated yourself.

...

When you saw them again, you screamed.

You both screamed.

Anguish, happiness, whatever emotion that could be, ran through you. But you felt alive again. Your life, as far as you had been concerned, had ended up until that point. But now it had started again, you were yourself once more.

But the anger and fear returned, not as bad, but enough to almost send you reeling, when you saw your child’s injuries.

You wanted to find whoever had done this and tear them apart.

But the injuries weren’t bad, just scrapes apart from the gash at the eye and even _that_ was shallow. Healing every day. When your kid snoozed on the way home from the hospital and you knew they’d be back to normal soon enough.

...

Though your eyes were closed, you smiled. Your face went lax, the muscles went gentle, and your child petted happily at the lines around your lips that appeared whenever you grinned. You spoke quietly to them, and they murmured to you. You’d always been alike in that sense, of very little words, though they looked like their mother.

There’s only one daddy, they said, and only one real mommy.

You had no idea what that meant, but you laughed. They asked you why you were crying, and you explained that you were happy.

...

You were moving.

The police had finally let you listen to the calls.

Your child had told you about ‘Riel’. Who went on about what was ‘best for them’. How she’d ‘take care of them’.

How _dare_ she?

Didn’t it occur to her that they already had a mother, whose soul was breaking apart at the idea of them being gone?

And why hadn’t those messages been directed at you and your husband? If those creeps were going to contact your child –

You tried to calm down and think, surrounded by moving boxes.

“And it’s all thanks to all the horrible things you did!”

An obliviously happy voice, the ‘tall man’ as your kid had called him, had been going on about how he was a mascot because of them. You’d never wanted to strike so many people in the nose in your life.

“Wait...Undyne would probably kill you.”

If that didn’t make you feel sick, then the feeling that someone was chattering to your child, like they were peering past your leg at their tiny self instead of looking you in the face with their gall, did.

Your husband had to wrestle the cell phone off you to stop you calling them back and demanding answers yourself.

The police didn’t approve of that idea.

...

Eventually, your wife’s anger turned back into worry, and you hurried to finish packing. Your child bounced up and down through the towers of boxes, skipping happily.

The old couple would be pained to see you go. But they’d visit. You’d visit them. They no longer lived in the village; they’d travelled back for the investigation. You planned to move to your wife’s mother’s city, so the child would have someone familiar to see.

Good thing they hadn’t gone to school just yet.

You tried not to think about the voices speaking to your child through the messages, but it’s all you pondered about all night.

“Sometimes the queen talks about...”

You hoped that was not a slur.

“How she’d like to see you again.”

Perhaps not, then.

But you didn’t like that idea, that this would continue. That someone was still ‘hoping’ to meet your child. And that ‘instinct’ your wife kept talking about, some urge to get as far away from the mountain as possible...it was becoming contagious.

“Isn’t that nice?”

That tone would fool a child, perhaps, or someone very innocent. But you knew what it meant, the barely detectable sarcasm, the sing-song note. The tone of someone trying to implicate that you ought to feel...guilty.

But about what?

Your child bobbed by your knees, singing a jumpy, jingly tune, and you thought no more of it for the day.

...

“...i don’t have the heart to tell her what you did.”

Self defence, you told yourself. Anything your kid might have done would be self-defence. You’d have done the same.

And that’s what bothered you.

Not the idea that your kid had hurt someone – well, it did. In a way. But more so was the notion that perhaps it was down to you.

You knew that it was a good thing, that they’d fought to live. You were the same. That’s what everyone said to you, you and your kid are the same.

You saw the looks in the policemen’s eye when they insinuated that your kid might have...attacked someone, perhaps lethally. You were defensive, and furious, how could they turn this all around on your four year old?! What were they _supposed_ to do, lie down and hand their attackers flowers?!

They wanted someone to blame, to start prosecuting, trigger-happy blowhards. And since they couldn’t find the culprits those _idiots_ wanted to...

You had to breathe.

Most people understood, that’s what mattered. If they found these people, and they took it to court, then whatever jury there was would vote in favour of your child. Self-defence. There was nothing wrong with your kid.

You watched them happily making two dolls dance like they did in princess movies and breathed a little easier.

...

But in the station that previous morning, you couldn’t breathe at all.

“...do you know how she’d react?”

You couldn’t care less how that ‘woman’ who tried to steal your child would react.

“...that if I told her that because she protected you...?”

You had stopped, then. The police said nothing as you sat there, in that office with lights the colour of faded teeth and the room too cold for your liking.

“...you went on to kill my brother?”

...

 _Had_ this woman protected them?

Who was she?

She’d wanted to keep them for herself, but saved them from...someone else? _Who_ else?

“You are not welcome.”

Well, you should think so. You weren’t ever coming back.

...

You were just about to fall asleep; your child snuggled between you and your wife, when the phone rang. Your hand pawed for it in the dark and the light made you squint almost comically.

The councillor?

Their voice came through to you, shrill and panicked, and you could picture their face clearly in your mind – shaken and ashen white.

The police officer who found your child had gone missing at the summit of Mount Ebbot.

_Get as far away as possible, no matter what the department says._

Your grip on the phone tightened. Your wife was awake, your child opening their eyes just a tad and peering at you in confusion.


	6. Barrier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A colleague of the Police Officer hears something strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's not as long nor as good in substance in my opinion, but this is the last new POV character. I have a plan for the next chapter.  
> The sound of the barrier can be unnerving.

This wasn’t happening.

They were just _there._

December had begun and the nights grew darker than dark. The stars and moon were shrouded in clouds, blocking out any helping light. The trees seemed to bend overhead to enclose the forest at the base of the mountain, trapping you in. Their roots liked to tangle up the feet of any traveller that dare come too close.

You and your search party were no different. The growing unease that had plagued the department like a spell grew to the breaking point that very morning. The air had been crisp but nowhere near as cold as it was now – your hands were numb below two pairs of gloves, your police uniform all but hidden beneath a thick, puffy jacket. Your hiking boots were caked in frost.

That morning, the search group had been scouring the mountain, higher this time. Your colleague, who had gone out almost every day to continue the investigation, had wandered a little ways to the left.

And then they were gone.

You had yelled for them to hurry up.

You called. But no one answered. The rest of your group decided to go in the same direction to follow them, but then you came to walls of rock and brittle-looking trees. No footprints, nothing. They were just...gone.

You kept looking, calmly, but inside you were beginning to panic.

You were a police officer. You dealt with criminals, the sick minded, the brutal. You knew how to keep your nerves level. But this mountain. It was too quiet. And this whole thing made absolutely no sense.

After four hours of aimless looking, your group had to return to the station. Thick-throated, you were the one they sent to the chief to explain that yeah, you know that place where all those kids went missing? Turns out we’ve just lost another person up there. Our bad.

You felt like an idiot, sitting there explaining that your colleague had just... _gone_. Slipped away. Eventually you were sent back out, the chief’s voice blaring in your ears and jeez, this wasn’t _your_ fault.

Get back out there, Chief had said, before the press gets their grubby hands on this!

So out with flashlights you went, swearing to whatever powers that be that if you found your colleague wandering around lost or something you’d kick his –

Oh, apparently the press _did_ get their ‘grubby hands’ on the info. And now the town was in a state of intrigue, fear, or excitement. Depended on what sort of person you were...

Your flashlight shone through the pitch-black forest, barely cutting through the curtain of darkness. The dogs were with you, tugging violently on their leashes. Your trusty partner, Noodles, was at the forefront, best snout in the business. It seemed at first that he had a trail and you calmed down a bit, the urge to pace around receding as the search party ambled through the dark after the dogs.

All went quiet when the canines found their destination. A thin but lengthy crack in the moss-covered mountainside.

You peered in with a smaller flashlight, but saw nothing but more stone. It felt like the quiet ambience of the forest had...increased.

Your fellow searchers were exchanging looks, the dogs sniffing in a more muted manner. Suddenly, you felt the urge to turn around and leave, what with the outline of the mountain looming above.

You shook that feeling away and tried not to sound like you had absolutely no idea what was going on. Okay, men. Just keep looking.

It was all you could do.

By that point it was so god forsaken dark that you couldn’t see your own fingers, or the police dogs. The flashlight’s glow was barely visible and you worked on sound alone, your group staying tightly huddled as you called for your colleague, countless times.

Where _were_ they?

You wondered. If you walked off from the group, just a little, perhaps you would...see something else?

No. Stay with the group. As strange as it sounded, you all felt as if that was one of the causes for their disappearance – straying. Being alone. Solitude would get you swallowed up.

Don’t leave the group, you told yourself. You told everyone. Don’t get lost.

You should have listened to your own advice.

...

Rookie, they called you. . Probably not even fit for duty. You’d get weeded out, they said. Even though you weren't really new. You almost kept quiet about what you heard because of that, but then the guilt ate away at that worry. Everything was so much easier on paper. Hopefully you’d get shifted to another department after this. Booking criminals was _normal._

What happened, the people ask? You decided that, during another search, perhaps an individual perspective would help. Perhaps if you saw the world as your colleague had seen it you’d understand why they’d go missing.

Just a few steps away from the ground. They were right behind you. You made sure you could hear one of the jock-like volunteers yapping as you wandered around the woodland.

You came to a rocky wall. Here, the mountain side seemed to recede inward. Like a dent. The frost and slush collected in little puddles and the wind was cut off.

That’s the thing. The wind. Was cut. Off. The silence had been maddening but it allowed you to listen better for any sign of your colleague.

Until you heard it.

It was not wind. It could not have been wind.

It was deep. And hollow. It was husky and _breath-like_ , echoing off stone and rock. And it seemed to be coming from the rocky mountain side. You stood stock still and listened, trying to decipher it. You hadn’t heard anything remotely like it. It made you think of emptiness, it was a noise that instilled silence and unease.

Repellent.

In and out it drew. Your torch shook. The darkness seemed to close in on your and you felt as if you were in deep, deep danger. You scrambled back to the group. For a good five minutes you kept your mouth shut. You heard a noise, you said. It was almost like wind but it _couldn’t_ have been. It was too distorted.

Rookie, they called you. That’s a vertical wall of rock back there. We’ve looked. It’s just air in the trees.

You tried. You tried to convince yourself that it was so. That your mind was playing tricks on you in the dark.

...

You found the toy knife.

At first you thought it was a rock. It had been two days later, around the same god-forsaken area your college had up and vanished, and you just happened to step on it. The sound of plastic bending under your feet had given you pause.

Toy knife. In the cracks of this old thing (the kind you’d find in cheap stores and magazines) had this weird white stuff. Like flower. You stared at it, coating your glove finger.

You and the guys brought it back to the lab people and their _faces._ And you thought no one could match your questionable nerves.

It wasn’t the toy knife belonging to a missing kid that startled them, no. It was the dust. But why? You couldn’t see anything remarkable about it, heck; you thought it was frost or something at first.

What got them so spooked?

...

The noise was nothing. Don’t push it. You mentioned it in passing twice after the initial rebuff. After that you found you couldn’t talk about it. It made you feel...

You couldn’t describe it.

The toy knife incident distracted you for a while. Apparently it was the ribbon kid who had it. In fact the four-year old your colleague found mentioned having a toy knife at some point but it hadn’t been found in their backpack. Conclusion? They’d dropped it.

Apparently they’d had a real knife at some point and personally _that_ concerned you more.

You were dragged in, asked where you found it. If  the ‘substance’ had been on anything else in that area. You were unnerved by that. No, you said. Not at all, just the knife – but it would be difficult to tell. Its winter. There’s frost everywhere. And that stuff is grey...

They actually went back to the exact area you showed them and those guys in masks and gloves started scanning the ground for it, taping off the area. They didn’t tell you _why._

What had it been? Drugs, something toxic? You hadn’t the stupidity to check and you hadn’t been feeling strange aside from the nerves. But that was happening a good while before you found the knife.

...

You saw the old couple, whose daughter’s knife you’d found. You couldn’t bring yourself to approach them even though you knew they might like to thank you. A _thank you_ wouldn’t bring their kid back and heck, you felt as though you’d made it worse.

The old man said something strange, though.

My girl fought them, he’d mumbled. She’d fought them at least. Fought who? With what? The knife?

Those words and that hollow, breath-like noise from the mountain kept you up at night.


	7. Optical Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You should have seen that coming.
> 
> (The Detective regrets his decision.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did some editing, hopefully I've fixed up all typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. Those sneak by you. Thanks for the support!

That _idiot._

That complete and utter idiot.

The department resembled a bunch of headless chickens more than reasonable authority figures. They were all at a loss, pulling at straws, no leads. No trace. The Police Officer was gone. Just...gone.

And it seemed big search parties were coming up with nothing. You heard whispers in the town, people were keeping their kids indoors, and no child was allowed to walk home alone. The nights were dark and the days were brief at best. You were not afraid. Just...unnerved, and _irritated._ You may have hit a brick wall in your investigation but this; this was a huge step back.

Or was it?

...

You’d made up your mind.

You were an investigator, for Pete’s sake. Who tracked that old phone? Who discovered the crevices in which the junk was flowing? Who searched the town looking for a match for the old keyset the kid had taken back from their venture?

You. It was time to stop fooling around. The clock was ticking, it weighed over the department like an oppressive shadow, and you knew that if these ever-darkening days kept passing without a snitch of progress, the Police Officer who went missing would turn up dead, too.

You could not rule out a coincidence, but still. They had come across the child by pure chance. They had strayed from their group during the spread-out search. If they hadn’t found that kid, maybe the perpetrators would have been able to catch them again. Perhaps this was revenge. Why else would a someone – or some _people_ – target an adult when so far they’d only gone after children?

Your hiking boots still had dry dirt lacing the bottom from the last time you went trekking about the forest. The crisp air stung your hands even as you tugged on your leather gloves. Your coat, reminiscent of all private investigators (though in reality you are a police detective, more official and far more boring) was flapping in the wind. It would rain tonight.

You felt a pull in your chest, a newfound rush in your blood that compelled you to _act._

First, you had to talk to the kid’s family before they fled.

...

You got the door slammed in your face, then your foot, the first and second times you tried to talk to them. It took you bellowing that this was about rescuing the _Police Officer that saved your kid_ to get the father to open the door. You just needed a rough idea – where did the kid go? What did it look like? You knew the department had asked them this but you needed to try.

I fell, the kid said, all bundled up in a hat and scarf for winter, their arms waving up and down. Their puffy jacket made a familiar ‘swish’ found with every gesture and it was getting distracting. The car outside had been stuffed with haphazardly packed possessions; clearly they’d meant to take off this very morning.

Fell where?

In the hole.

What hole?

On the mountain. Roots catch-ed my foot. I fell down, down, onto the flowers.

You felt their parent’s gazes burrowing into either side of your face until you felt like a poached egg. You thanked the child, bowed your head to the parents, and left.

...

You liked riddles as a kid. You enjoyed figuring people out, dissecting puzzles and finding the faint but very existent connections between things.

Roots, hole, flowers. They’d fallen. If it had been a long plummet their injuries would have been exceptionally worse.

It was children that went missing. You had to go were a child would think to go, perhaps were only a kid could _get_ to.

Small spaces? Somewhere that an adult would avoid but an oblivious youngster would not? You wrote it all down in scribbled bullet points as you walked into the forest. Broad daylight. You had a phone with you, GPS located, and you sent updates to your colleagues. Of course, you didn’t tell anyone you were going – they’d try to stop you. But you weren’t a fool.

You brought a tracker. If you got lost they would find you.

Think like a kid, huh? Maybe –

You scratched an ‘X’ on a tree here and there. Halfway into the woods it began to snow. The cold became biting, your breath like steam. The soft ‘frumph’ of your footsteps made everything seem rather calm and a bit silly. It made your hectic composure cool down.

Roots would be harder to find, here. You followed the route the Police Officer’s group had taken, further up the mountain, stopping now and then to nibble on a nutrient bar. It was getting harder to tell areas apart now, so you kept to a straight line, using ‘Xs’ to guide your way.

But then the snow began to level out.

What?

It was supposed to get colder further you went. The ground was leveller here, too. Some kind of recess in the mountain? You frowned as you went on, the ground crackling below your feet.

Beside you the mountain seemed to extend up vertically; cracks and growing plants covering the rock. The trees loomed overhead. Droplets of what running –

Running. Connect the dots, running water on a more or less flat part of the mountain...

You followed the noise.

Hole, they’d said. You kept going right towards the seemingly vertical wall before you. You stopped, smelling the musty damp stone, and turned your head so that your ear was almost pressed against it. You listened –

And it happened.

It was like staring at an optical illusion. From another angle you would not have seen the small opening in the rock, barely enough to fit a person, nor the roots sporting from the ground. Transfixed by it, you drew closer, keeping your head at that rotation. You had to squeeze yourself through it was so narrow, but once you did –

The rock spaced out and another opening revealed itself, big and mouth-like with sloping soil and roots outlining it like a frame –

A thick gusty noise was rising from within. The sunlight coming through the clouds above seemed to bounce off something inside the cave opening. A strange light reflected back at you and you drew closer, careful, ** _careful_** of the roots...

You stopped when you reached the foot of the cave.

_Holy -_

There, below you, was a giant hole in the ground. A sheer drop that seeped into pure darkness, a void.

How was this _possible?_

You called down. No one replied.

How the _hell_ would anyone survive this? Or get back up?

This was something out of nightmares, this. Suddenly you the image of crazy cult members tossing goats into giant holes popped into your mind, and usually you’d shrug it off and roll your eyes at such things. But now you weren’t quite certain.

The air current coming out of this thing was eerily breath-like. You almost considered taking a recording.

You fumbled with your camera to begin taking pictures because _hell_ no one was going to believe you. If that Police Officer had taken a tumble on this dangerously tangled roots...you doubt they would have survived. The kid couldn’t have fallen down this. Unless...?

Perhaps – water at the bottom?

You stooped down and fumbled for a rock after taking a few pictures.

What you forgot was that the ground, though snow-less, was soggy.

What you forgot was that your boots hadn’t been used very often.

Good thing you remembered to take those pictures before you slipped. It was certainly a better idea than coming alone.

 

 


	8. Not Fun Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intent is everything, and sometimes fear and frustration taint our intentions when we least expect it.  
> Or, the funny monsters aren't fun anymore. Frisk's interpretation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monsters are basically all feelings, dust and magic. Intent to kill is sometimes all that is needed to bring them down. Negative emotions can turn a twig into a sword.

The smell of your parent’s laundered bed sheets filled with you relief, and determination. They did not smell like butterscotch or snails, your home was messier with blue wallpaper rather than yellow, and Toriel’s home had been pretty but it didn’t have your height wall (your mother would use a pencil to scribble your new height every month and you’d stand on your tip-toes to be taller.)

Her kitchen hadn’t had your father’s cooler for his fish and sandwich meats; it didn’t have his spice shelves. You and Daddy made the best sandwiches and on Christmas when Grandma visited you’d make them all on your own to give to her.

You missed Toriel like you would an auntie. You didn’t see your real aunties much, and your father had no sisters.

Getting lost hadn’t startled you too much. Big places, big caves, and then funny people like the ones in costumes at the Fairgrounds you went to on your birthday. Because of that you simply looked at the whole event as a trip to the theme park. At first.

When Toriel came she talked like a teacher at preschool, so you followed her. She helped your leg. She was nice, but all the while Mommy’s words chattered in your head – no talking to strangers, no matter how nice. So you didn’t.

You should be getting home you knew, but there was a big mirror, bigger than Mommy’s, to jump in front of, and cinnamon and new places to see. Big froggies bounded around you and vegetables talked, you were so happy and distracted that you almost drowned out your mother’s teachings.

Don’t take too much candy.

But then the frogs and carrots started hurting you. They threw things that stung your fingers; the Flower had played a trick. Trick, like the big kids who pushed you once. When the little white dots hit you, you half expected your father to come bounding into view to tell off the Flower’s mommy and daddy.

Your father didn’t yell like other fathers; he spoke in quiet, yet thunderous tones that made people scared.

He didn’t come. You hit the carrot on the side with your stick, angry at the trick. And ‘boosh’. They disappeared.

They’re monsters, you thought, like in the closet or under the bed. Mommy says they disappear if you aren’t scared. No monster could get you.

The spectacle of the new house and pretty fireplace wore off. You were hungry and the sugary pie was too much, you wanted a Dad Sandwich. Your bag was dirty. Mommy would want you back now. Where were they?

Have to go home, you mumbled. You didn't want to break your promise to your mother but Toriel didn’t understand your doodle drawings.

Then Toriel went all strange, she wouldn’t look at you, walked away when you pulled at her skirt and it made you sad.

Then she started saying things that weren’t nice, weren’t funny. You didn’t understand her words. Didn’t know what an Asgore was. But you kept hearing six, six, six. You remembered the shoes, lots of shoes that didn’t fit you, and silly toys. Toys that kids in old cartoons played with. Six, six.

Toriel tried to hurt you.

You hadn’t been bad. And even if you had been your own parents never hurt you. You just wanted to go home, you had to go home, she wasn’t your mommy. You made a mistake calling her that, she wasn’t like your mommy. You didn’t mean to hit her so hard with your stick. You didn’t mean to make her disappear. Where’d she go? When would she come back? You’d say sorry.

But the bright things had hurt and they smelled like the cooker when your father burnt something, don’t touch, don’t touch.

The snow made you feel better for a bit, made you forget. Papyrus and Sans were fun, the jokes made you giggle, the puzzles were like giant games of hopscotch. You didn’t get most of them right but you were having fun, rolling up snowballs, like Christmas time was early. There were even little lights and reindeer, and birdies. And dogs, you always loved dogs, you wanted one for Christmas. Papyrus had his own snowman that looked just like him, he left your notes. Though you couldn't read them. He was big and loud and funny. Sans was friendly, too, always smiling like the dancing skeletons on TV at Halloween time. 

You wondered if you were in Christmas Land and you tried to find Santa; there was a nice lady in the shop and bunnies _everywhere._

But then the cold started to hurt and you remembered it was time to go home. You cried, a bit, but then Papyrus came.

He did not give you spaghetti. You didn’t like this game. The white sticks hit your knees and the cold was making you sleepy and shaky.

You fell down and got put on a dog bed.

You went out. It happened again. Your lip was sore and cold and you were crying. Eventually Papyrus stopped his game and you ran away. He seemed confused, but he was like the big kids. Your father said you couldn’t play with them yet. 

Tra-la-la. You went on a boat.

Things got worse and worse after that.

You didn’t understand anything the fish woman or the yellow dinosaur lady were saying. The first one yelled and made you jump and said ‘you have to die’. Yellow one talked about numbers and phones and computers. You just followed which way she said. Everything else was confusing.

You were hungry and sore and this wasn’t fun anymore. Sans talked to you a bit, smiling like always, but you barely listened. You didn’t understand half of what he was saying and you shouldn’t ask. Because that would be talking to strangers.

It got worse.

Asgore was nice at first. Then he said you were going to the dentist. You didn’t have any sore teeth.

After that was bad, bad dreams. Scary faces, loud noises, hurting and hurting and darkness, you screamed your heard off.

Then some kids came and helped you and you were so confused. Girls in ribbons and tutus who said you could keep their old stuff. Hand-me downs, hand-me downs. Yay. You were back in the forest and you could barely walk. Step-step, muddy shoes, all cold, home, home. Mommy, Daddy, sandwiches.

Then someone picked you up and you started crying. But it was people, _real_ people, police-men, taking you in the police car.

Then Mommy and Daddy were back, you were back home. There was lots of sleeping and food and hot drinks, the scratches were going away. You didn’t understand why everyone wanted to know so much about the monsters. You thought it was a dream. Your father’s friends from work brought you big presents and things for a ‘pick me up’ for your parents. You were delighted at the new clothes and wellington boots.

Then cartoons came on, night, day, night day, the images of Toriel and Sans got further and further away.

You lost your phone. You wondered what happened to it. You were in bed, now, nose under the sheets, smelling of flowers and fabric-softener.

...

In another timeline it was worse.

Walking was hard.

All empty. Scary forest. Faces in the dark. They all wanted to get you. You didn’t want to get gobbled up.

Giant birds, big barking dogs, all wanted to get you. Papyrus said he wanted to capture you and after the puzzles and the spaghetti you didn’t understand why. You didn’t want to play.

Papyrus started throwing things at you, too, and that made you sad and angry and confused. He wouldn’t stop though you kept saying ‘please’. So you hit him with your stick as hard as he could.

Poof. He went away.

Sans was mad at you for hitting Papyrus. You knew that but he started it, he hit me first. But you didn’t say so, no talking to strangers.

Sans watched you all the time. His eyes were scary. You wanted to run away but the snow went on forever.

The clanking of the fish lady would haunt you forever even if you forgot her. Then a robot man who zapped you whenever you got the answer wrong. You didn’t like these games, they were bad, bad. You hit them with your stick, poof, go away. Bad monsters.

You got dust all over your new tutu. You had wanted to show it to Mommy.

...

Another time, you found a note that had been left at the shop. You couldn’t read.

...

The water was too cold to go paddling.

The flower came back and you glared at it, all snot-nosed and angry. They were talking about feelings and maybe you thought they were trying to say sorry for tricking you. They got your name wrong lots and that made you not want to hug and make friends. Bad flower.

The flower got scared and ran away. You had a scary face just like your father.

...

You stopped the biggest monster who took the other six away. He kept all the love-hearts to himself like a bad guy in one of the sat-ur-day cartoons. Six, six, remember. For some reason you had to remember that number.

Sans only talked to you once more in the gold place. You had to ask your parents what ‘kill’ meant again. You think it meant dead, which meant someone went on vacation for a long, long time. You get wings and fly up into the sky instead of on an airplane though. Was Sans angry at you because he didn’t get to go?

Sans wasn’t nice anymore, and you just stared at him.

...

You had a new grandpa and grandma. Two grandmas now. They gave you ribbons and told you stories. Your mother and father followed you around constantly. Sometimes you’d ask for your phone because Alphys might call but they said no. Whenever you told people about the monsters they shook their heads. When you said they disappeared they gave you strange smiles.

You were going on vacation, you thought. Packing your picture books and socks, going in the car. You bounced up and down between the boxes while your mother was on the phone.

...

You remembered to tell the police-men about the cat and lizard in the garbage who gave you a cowboy gun. Yee-haw.

A detective man with a big coat came to talk to you. You were excited. But you weren’t allowed to go with him to find the bad guys.

...

That man never came back, and you never saw the person who took you out of the scary woods again after that. They had bright eyes when they found you, so happy. Maybe they’d been lost too. They’d carried you home and you forgot to say sorry for trying to hit them with your grey shiny stick.

You wondered where they went.

You slept in your parent’s room between them even when you didn’t have bad dreams; they wanted to see you all the time, be in the room and you didn’t understand why. Your father sat you on his lap in the waiting rooms to talk to the police-men, and while you played with your teddy he kept looking around and holding you tight. Like something was wrong.

...

In another timeline, it was stranger.

The mirror was acting funny. It made you look different. 

There was another child, older than you, who spoke with big words and smiled all the time. You were lost and though Mommy told you not to talk to strangers, she never said anything about other kids. The bigger kid told you how to stop the monsters getting you, what the answers to the puzzles were. They walked alongside you in the water-place. Like mirror-you only in green. They were taking you home, they said, and they did. When you told everyone about them they looked worried.

You worried, too. You cried that night and asked your mother if you were bad for leaving them behind.

The police are looking, your parents said. You mentioned that they were in the mirror but they didn’t understand that it _wasn’t_ mirror-you.

..

Don’t step on a crack. You wobbled a bit. Gold square, brown square. Careful not to step on a crack.

A shadow touched your toe and you peered up. In front of you, all in shadow and quiet was Sans. His hands in his pockets. You stared at him. Was he sleeping? His eyes were closed.

He lifted his head, little white dots watching, watching. He was smiling but for some reason you didn’t like it, so you didn’t grin back.

Can even the worse person change? Change what?

Love. Level of something.

Papyrus. You pouted at that, knowing you’d hit him with your stick. Sans’ eyes were getting narrow, he looked angry. Like you’d done something bad. You ought to say Papyrus hit first.

Sans said you were a dirty brother killer. You were covered in dirt, you needed a bath. But what’s killer?

Where’d he go?

You didn’t like it when Sans disappeared, like spooky spiders. It’s worse when they vanish from the ceiling corner. They could be under your bed...


	9. Pied Piper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because you can, you have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're coming to the end of this particular story...but I may have something planned in its wake, it depends. Thanks for all the comments and support - they really mean a lot.  
> In each timeline, the humans will react differently to each recording, with some scenes being shared by all timelines.

“And, we’re helping Dr Alphys with her research!”

“She’s gonna find a way to get us outa here!”

The voices on the other end of the phone, in one particular, less uneasy timeline, bewilder the police force rather than unnerve them. The people on the other side do not sound sinister yet the cheeriness of their messages leaves unanswered questions. None sound like children or even remotely like young people so whatever ‘things’ they are talking about – queens, kings, underground places, _cannot_ be games.

The detectives look into it, trying to figure out possible explanations if they are indeed kidnappers – that perhaps there’s some falsehood here, some facade. Others begin to wonder if perhaps the kid met some very oblivious but amiable strangers.

This, in a world such as ours, seems very unlikely.

But the mentions of imprisonment make the department wonder, and one person came up with a very strange theory that could be chalked up as befuddling conspiracy.

If they are prisoners perhaps it’s not the kidnapper who left the messages, but other captives. And heck, it’s been sixty years since the first kid went missing. Maybe some of them are still alive and we’re hearing them right now!

Such mad hope was nipped in the bud by the analysis of the girl’s notebook, and the four-year old’s mention of the coffins.

And the way these people call other folk ‘humans’.

Maybe it was all a sick joke.

...

Sweet mother of gods that may or may not be.

Your hands were shaking. You felt like you were going to vomit because a little nagging voice in the back of your head was vehemently telling you that this was your entire fault. The recording sent to the police department at exactly 14:02 PM Tuesday, mid December 201X, sent a flurry of confusion through the force. A number you were no longer part of because _you_ were the only person who recognised the hollow breath-like tone.

A Detective had gone into the woods with a strong GPS signal as his lifeline. But when they tried to trace the phone again, it disappeared. They had tracked it, but before they could locate it exactly it moved just another yard and vanished. Poof, you thought with a slightly disturbed, terror-induced humour.

You knew it would be near that wall. Your colleague, the Detective, both swallowed by _whatever it was._

You told the Chief you heard that noise where you described. When they said they were going to send _more people_ you panicked. You felt like you were sending them into some kind of trap.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

You started feeling this pull. This urge. To go back to that shadowy receded in the mountain, to that hollow noise’s point. You lay awake at night trying to battle it, terrified.

Self-loathing plagued you further...when you realised _that_ terrified you more than more people getting taken.

And yet, some part of you murmured – you have to know. You heard it. You can’t ever un-hear it, it’s too late for you anyway, you’ll go mad, it’s your fault that man is missing too.

You jolted when you actually realised that you were _considering it._

Tie a rope to something, then go near. Maybe it’ll be different for you, or maybe you’ll be murdered and your body gone to the world.

You gripped your pillow tight and didn’t sleep a wink. They say those who climb Mount Ebbot never return, but that kid did. This one kid broke the cycle and now whoever was out there had changed their game.

But that noise. It was unnatural, unworldly. You kept thinking about it when you went to work.

...

You couldn’t sleep, so you stopped by the old library to do a little digging into the silly stories you heard as a child.

Some of the detectives had looked into the old urban myth that was right up there with Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks, concerning lone children in the wilderness. You found the same dead end they all did.

The legend of Mount Ebbot, you read, was a similar story to (and perhaps a vague adaptation/version of) of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Since that story also entailed missing children and a very suspicious mountain, you could see the connections.

What made you feel ill were not the already known similarities, but the ‘luring’ element. The sound that had transfixed the children who heard it so they had no choice but to go to the mountain.

Go to the mountain.

And in that story.

In – in some accounts, right, one kid was spared. Some versions it was three or two but sometimes little renditions showcased only one of each three; a blind kid, a kid with a bad leg, a deaf kid. Sometimes just a kid that was less than smart.

But in the story YOU remembered only _one_ kid got away.

...

People stare at your peaky face and bloodshot eyes. Your flashlight is tucked into your jacket pocket against your chest and ever so slightly digs into your skin. It fills you with a decent amount of willpower.

You hear murmuring resonating from the offices – the four-year old’s parents had fled the town at last with them and are currently on a plane to another state, perhaps to the other side of the continent if need be. You wonder if the kid will truly forget. If they heard the noise.

You offer to lead the guys up with your trusty dogs to the place you heard the recording on the Detective’s phone. The other files are being decoded; they were only half-sent when the signal cut off. The Chief looks at you and raises a hand, offers you time off, maybe counselling. A panic-stricken indigence rises within you. He doesn’t understand, you _have_ to go.

...

“She still blames you...”

“...For the disappearance of Asgore.”

You had looked that up, too, before you walked out of the station. No such results came from the world-wide web, no similar names that bore any better explanation. The investigators had built up sizable notes on things mentioned in the notebook and the people speaking in the recordings.

You read over the missing Detective’s notes when you were not meant to.

_Subject A: The Blue Hood Man. no determined accent, bit common sounding. Male. No determined age or appearance apart from pale complexion, possibly Caucasian, and of course...the notorious blue hood jacket._

_Subject B: Sibling of Blue Hood Man. Perhaps a younger man, perhaps even on the spectrum as some wondered. Perhaps insane. Very loud, very pompous and oblivious to the connotations in his words. Appearance...tall?_

_Subject C: Unknown Woman, seemingly violent, perhaps the four-year old’s initial attacker._

_Subject D: ‘Dr Alphys’. Female. Perhaps the modifier of the phone. No records in any database, non-professional._

_\- Water reservoirs_

_\- Trash collections_

_- HOLES._

You wondered what that meant. The word sent a wave of unease crawling up your back.

“Please...Undyne’s not doing well.”

The department likened the woman’s behaviour as depressive. Perhaps that was what caused the violence. You found it hard to sympathise.

You could barely think about all that now. You were walking towards the Mountain. As you got closer, your senses seemed to strain. You limbs shook. The dread and guilt weighed on you, that the disappearance of the Detective was your fault. That you had to do this.

Perhaps, you thought that by going up there you could put it right. You could make the nagging stop, the guilt stop, if you just went to see what had happened to them.

You _had_ to.

...

You remembered the day the kid in your class went missing, didn’t you? All books and glasses that glinted in the dim light, notes clutched to their chest. Nineteen years ago. Dead. You’d barely understood back then. You expected never to hear from it again. You felt shameful for forgetting her for at least a decade while you got on with your life.

Your police dog patters along beside you; a German Sheppard clad in a glow-in-the-dark jacket, tugging gently at his leash. The jingle of his collar fills you with shaky reassurance.

Through the snow, equipped with a police uniform, a badge, a flashlight and a dog. Your flashlight illuminates the barely visible path ahead of you.

Closer. You hear the sound. A strange shadow looms above you as you come closer to the wall. Your dog whines inquisitively, pawing at the rock. His ears bend and he scuttles back, disliking something about it.

You pet him reassuringly and wander closer yourself. Your hands shake as you decide to let him stay here.

You don’t see the strange optical illusion in the dark. You simply feel about the rock and found yourself led in by the noise; puffy police jacket scratched against the narrow passage. Police Dog whines again, as if warning you.

You go in. There’s nothing but darkness and that God-Awful sound getting louder and louder.

Your entire body jerks as your foot hits something. You plummet forward and prepare for the pain of hitting the floor. But it never comes. You don’t even scream as you fall.

Barking.

The Police Dog barrels into the narrow passage, and leaps into the darkness after you.


	10. Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Ending to An Aftermath.  
> Or, in one of the worse timelines, Sans gets a phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the support. I never expected this story to go anywhere beyond a little drabble-ish idea. I've planned out a second story that this acts as a prologue to, exploring the happenings the Police Officer, Detective and Police Colleague's journey in the Underground. It will be called 'Neutral Colours'.  
> Thanks again, hope you enjoy this final chapter.

It had been a month since the human had escaped, and things were...well they could have been better. You heard some guy say that pure silence isn’t the same as quiet once. Silence isn’t when everything goes still of its own accord. It’s oppressive and that’s just how the Underground felt. The snowy forests and far-off jewels twinkling like stars couldn’t fool the eye anymore, not when the brain directly above knows what the game. An illusion had been shattered.

And yet people seemed more riled and active than ever. You caught hushed whispers as you wandered down Snowdin sometimes, even more in Hotland. Plans for the future. _What we’re gonna do when we get out._ How far do you think the human went? How long will it take Undyne to find them?

Undyne had a way of taking a lot of complex feelings, like pain, regret and fury, and pounding them up pasta-style into a singular drive. Everything nowadays was about destroying the humans. No Mettaton Commercials, no quirky motels, no one even cared about the overcrowding and tourists from the Capital anymore.

To tell the truth it was one of the reasons you didn’t hang around much. Besides the obvious of course.

Anyway, the ruins were swell in their own way, you’d think with a lazy blink. The fire was always lit and the couches always cosy. Someone like you didn’t need much else.

Dwelling on it made it worse. Everyone feels grief in different ways and well, for you it was like a weight. Something different from fatigue but similar in a sense that your body would stop moving if you stayed still and ruminated on it for too long.

It was like your short jacket-wearing body was sinking. Ah, well.

The messages you left didn’t serve as much of an outlet. Maybe you could have shouted or something. But then...that was never your forte. Anyway it didn’t make you feel any better. Only got a pinch of the poison out.

Toriel’s living room was empty aside from you. The ketchup bottle in your hand was empty and you didn’t really feel hungry anyway. The book on your lap was half-interesting at least...

Everyone chattered about the human like it happened a year ago when really, if you wanted to Mr Technicality Pants, it had been three weeks tops. You counted. Counting, numbers, that was you thing. Counting the z’s.

Heh. You almost expected a shrill, annoyed voice to come barging in to demand if you were daydreaming about bad jokes.

You forgot all about the phone. It had been shoved into the corner of the kitchen bunker for the past weeks, idle and harmless.

Maybe you would have drifted off into some form of sleep if it hadn’t started ringing.

Pale lights blinked in and out of existence within dark sockets, and you shifted around and stared into the kitchen in bewilderment. It rang again.

The lights vanished. You were fully prepared for another round of the silent treatment. It allowed you to get more than a word in edgeways. Plucking up the phone, you saw that yup – guess who. Did they not check their messages for ages?

You were about to press ‘answer’ with a bony thumb, morbidly curious despite yourself – when the ringing cut off suddenly. Like the call had been interrupted.

Standing in the kitchen feeling a bit foolish, you lowered the phone and shrugged. Of course. Good thing you didn’t have a gut to kick.

...

Five weeks.

A lot of one-a-day hamburgers. Grillby’s hadn’t changed, though with less monsters to fill the seats the restaurant felt a little more than chilly. Not just because of the kid’s spree, they hadn’t killed as many as they could have, but because many monsters were out training. Almost everyone. Heck you even saw that Monster Kid running after Undyne these days.

Good luck to them, you supposed...

Not for the first time you aimlessly mused over **_it_** at Grillby’s. What happened? How it started was almost skipped over in your head, mandatory greetings and such. The kid that had come traipsing out of the woods was...a weird one.

The memories you had of human children were vague but you remember them being loud, rambunctious, and always on the move. This kid didn’t utter a word; in fact it was like they had devoted half their willpower into not doing so. Smiley at times, sure, but mostly they were kind of the stoic. That was okay, you supposed to begin with. At least they weren’t running away screaming. And they attempted Papyrus’s puzzles like a pro, even nibbling on rock-hard spaghetti.

What a way to lure someone into a false sense of security.

After a few puzzles and aimless wandering, the kid apparently decided they were bored of the exploration game and decided to play ‘how hard can you hit a monster’ instead. That teen Snowdrake was the first to go. Onlookers said the kid had bashed him various times on the noggin, and that they kept flailing about.

You didn’t get it. There were other ways of dealing with a duel. So many. Did human not get how it worked anymore?

Papyrus had liked the kid and before Snowdrake you kinda liked them too. They couldn’t have found the _Junior Jumble_ hard, seriously. Right?

Subtle hints were totally lost on them and all you received was that blank stare, you so warned them outright about fighting your brother.

Papyrus aimed to fight, which is why you hadn’t expected it. Snowdrake was just some kid who was all talk. Your brother, though, however silly he could be, could pack a real punch.

You waited for him to come and drag you away from Grillby’s.

He didn’t.

For the first few hours, a cold anger – not even fury – had burned away everything inside your skeletal frame, the lights in your sockets and the warmth in your grin, and the only thing blocking it from your head entirely was the woman’s soft pleading. Every time you got close to the kid (and you could tell they could see you in the shadows) you almost heard her voice right there, asking why you went and broke your promise.

But why? The kid had _liked_ Papyrus. They’d liked some of the other monsters. Why turn like that? Had it all been a game to them from the start?

It wasn’t your job to end it. No human had ever gotten past Asgore. Ever. Sorry, lady. Good thing you didn’t ask Old Fluffykins for that favour.

You waited in the hall for most of the day. Looking forward to it in a morbid sense. Focusing on this, on judgement and frigid fury, it kept everything else away, even the image of Papyrus’s smiling face.

It would come seeping into you later, though, in the quiet aftermath. The realisation wouldn’t hit you, it would swallow you and no amount of anger could be re-lit for the melancholy that came next.

You felt yourself shut down.

The whole time you spoke to the tyke they simply stared at you with what could maybe be consider a scowl, eyes narrowed into black eyelashes little slits. Almost pouting to begin with. As if you were in the wrong.

Heh.

Maybe you were just annoying the kid.

But after mentioning Papyrus and several choice words, the kid’s face went blank and foggy. Soundlessly they wandered off to go and meet Asgore, not even looking back to see where you’d gone. You felt no regret, watching their messy hair-head vanish into the doorway.

And just like that, Asgore was dead.

Turns out that woman you spoke to? The Queen herself. Met the Angel of Death and the missing monarch – you had to be a celebrity.

You didn’t pay attention to much the following days. You knew she’d been driven away. You knew Undyne was in control now, and that the crowds of monsters were rallying in passionate ferocity to begin the new plan. It felt like their anger alone could shatter the barrier.

Alphys found you sitting in your house alone after a week. You assured her you were fine. Totally fine. No, you didn’t want to talk about it. You would be swell if you had some...time.

Time to stew in whatever existence this was, heh.

But yet here you were in the Ruins, bringing book after book for Toriel to read. Glancing away when she mentioned the kid. The one she described sounded completely different from the one you knew – smiley and candy-stealing. Apparently called them ‘Mom’.

Either this kid was insane or just plain twisted. Maybe humans still didn’t think of Monsters as ‘real’. Things made out of dust to play with. You had more theories than Alphys did for her anime.

Toriel was washing up in the kitchen that moment, letting you sit alone by the fire.

That’s when the phone rang again.

Bee-bee-beep.

It lay on the new coffee table Toriel had made.

...Huh.

The number was the same as before. This time you didn’t wait around for a Papyrus-like tone to tell you to hurry. You felt that cold, brittle fury awaken again, the kind that chased away your usually sleepiness.

“...heya.”

“...Who is this?”

You frown a bit, though your skeletal smile was still firmly in place of course. Okay, not what you were expecting. “Sans.” You humour whoever it was.

“...This is usually against...” Whispering in the background. It sounds vaguely like ‘keep him talking’. “Policy. But could you please identify yourself further?”

“...well bud, you’re the caller, if you’re sellin’ something your gotta say your name first.” Your hearty tone was well _– half-hearted._

“My name is – “

You wouldn’t hear it again.

“where’s the kid?”

Silences. You knew them well. They were a harsh but obvious mistress and you knew, just after that leisurely question, whoever was on the other side had frozen.

“May we ask how you know this child?”

They had to be humans. Now this was...different. “let’s just say we’re acquainted.” If Undyne knew you were chatter to them she’d flip.

“We have recorded your messages. We would- “ More whispers. Suspicion sunk into your skull, who were these guys? “Like to ask you some questions. You mentioned several...deaths. You accuse the child you send these messages to as the perpetrator. Is that why you...?”

Silence. Clearly they were just trying to keep you talking, but those questions...they were interesting enough. “huh.” You stood up and eyed the nearby shelves, drumming your fingers a little too hard on the arm of the armchair. “yeah. The kid killed my brother. Few other people, too, matter of fact.”

Silence.

Pressing on easy strangely easy, almost therapeutic as you carried on in a casual note, “i take if they haven’t taken out anyone up there, then?”

“Did your brother attack this child?”

 _Anything_ sounds bad when you say it in a certain way. But Papyrus was Papyrus. He never took off a warrior costume. He liked Junior Jumbo. And the kid had already _offed_ someone beforehand. The sparks in your sockets were gone and you didn’t need a mirror to know it.

“watch yourself, pal. That isn’t a nice tone.”

You hung up.

...

Alphys was working on breaking the barrier. Though you knew it was easier said than done. There was no ‘other way’ besides what had always been the plan. And now that the kid had apparently snatched the souls of the humans before them (nice one, kid) they were in for a whole load of waiting.

You were content to wait.

It would be nicer if Toriel stopped mentioning the kid. You went back to your own house less than often nowadays. It felt strange, like you’d trespassed on private property despite your name being on the over-stuffed letterbox.

You didn’t go into Papyrus’s room.

Sometimes, to avoid thinking about the fact he wasn’t there every morning, you almost wished the kid would come back so it wouldn’t just end without some kind of...you didn’t know. Something. Anti-climatic was the term.

Revenge sounds petty when it isn’t about someone you know.

...

The ruins weren’t as lit up as they were usually. Toriel knew what Undyne was doing to the place. How hard everyone was working to turn themselves into human-fighting machines. She still performed her rounds, but the strangeness of it all seemed to transgress into the Ruins, and the magic keeping it purple-lit was subdued. It almost looked like night time out there.

You were standing in the garden, watching some snails that had escaped Toriel’s kitchen, and wondering whether they had the same problems you did with speediness.

Then the Ruins’ dwellers started appearing nearby, searching for Toriel and jabbering.

“she’s not hear. Sorry, buster.” He told a veggie-like fellow nearby. They had an ever-smiling-face too. Poor guy. “I’ll pass on the message.”

And they told you.

A human had fallen into the underground. They were coming this way. And like that the limbo between Papyrus’s death and now had ended. The stagnation down here was over.

So soon. You almost wondered if...

Into the shadows you went, to watch, to listen, and hopefully, to make a better decision than the one you made back when you first saw that kid trotting through the snowy woods.

**Author's Note:**

> To avoid confusion, I'll put this note here. This story deals with several of the Neutral Endings, from chapter-to-chapter or even paragraph to paragraph. Each different perspective starts more or less at the beginning of the same investigation and then ends around the same time.
> 
> There's meant to be ambiguity, but hopefully you'll be able to guess what ending is being talked about in each section.


End file.
